Saturday, 29 November 2008

Abide with me

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.When other helpers fail and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;Change and decay in all around I see;O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,Familiar, condescending, patient, free.Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

I'm not religious. Haven't been since my teens. But this hymn can make me cry. It was the favourite of one of my grandmothers. Also a favourite of Gandhi's (which us why you'll hear it at events associated with him), and just about the only thing my nana had in common with the Mahatma, who she didn't like very much. And it was sung at my mother's funeral last year.

Peter here as promised! And AWM is my favourite hymn too, with the de rigueur tears. There's a Jesuit school next to my office, and each time the school band plays it I go out to listen and flush my tear ducts :) Remember that scene in "A Bridge Too Far" where all those battered and shot airborne troops sing it together?

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to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting~ e e cummings

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Ring the bells that still can ring,Forget your perfect offering,There is a crack in everything;That's how the light gets in.~ Leonard Cohen

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I fell in love – that is the only expression I can think of – at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behavior very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy.~ Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet, "Poetic Manifesto" in the Texas Quarterly, Winter 1961

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